Beautiful Thing

Leela is a bar dancer in Mumbai. She is young, beautiful, determined and hedonistic. And she is also self destructive, cynical and full of despair. When the dance bars in the city are banned, the young woman and her friends find their worlds slowly giving way. Journalist Sonia Faleiro followed Leela before and after the ban, meeting her friends, her lovers, and her family. In this extraordinary work of reportage, she draws an unforgettable portrait of the bar dancer and her subterranean night-time world..

BookReviews

"‘A magnificent book of reportage that is also endowed with all the terror and beauty of art’—Kiran Desai.

‘A brilliant, unforgettable book by a writer who is one of the best of her generation’—Business Standard ‘Riveting story-telling’—The Times of India "